A shot across the bows for illegal fishing boats

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Federal authorities have intensified their fight against illegal fishing in Australia's north, firing warning shots over at least one boat which ignored orders to stop off the Northern Territory coast this week.

The 105-metre customs/fisheries patrol boat Oceanic Viking, which is fitted with .50-calibre machine guns, apprehended the illegal boat and another two 800 kilometres north-west of Darwin.

The three boats and another caught nearby by the customs boat Corio Bay were escorted into Darwin yesterday.

They were found to have more than 15 tonnes of fish on ice.

Twelve foreign crew members were arrested.

They will be charged or deported, and the boats almost certainly destroyed, under Australia's tough customs and quarantine laws.

Customs and fisheries officers say illegal boats often try to outrun patrol boats to the invisible line that marks the Australian-Indonesian border.

Other new tactics used to escape capture include having pit bulls on board and jamming long spikes out of the side of boats, in an attempt to discourage boarding parties.

The federal Justice and Customs Minister, Chris Ellison, yesterday admitted it was impossible to halt the rise in illegal fishing without the help of neighbours, including Indonesia and East Timor.

Speaking after the fisheries ministers from Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory criticised the Federal Government for not doing enough, Senator Ellison said: "What I want to see is a regional response, because we can't do this alone.

"We want to put in place similar mechanisms to what we saw for people smuggling that worked very effectively."